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Rivera
Rivera Rivera was originally settled by Nordmarians who traveled along the coast and found uninhabited land that their long boats could easily access among the frothing rivers that were not accessible to the early Orlesians. Heavily influenced by Novera and Orlais - culturally, Rivera soon became their own culture of pragmatic, ambitious and hardy people. In the southern Rivera (no longer part of the Riveran Kingdom, as the lands were eventually lost to Orlais), an indigenous people were annexed by the settling Nordmarian-Riverans, and these people were heavily dependent on horses. Rivera, remains today, the primary producer of war-horses, work horses and riding horses in the Westerlands, and they were perfected the idea of Cavalry troops. As is in their blood, the Riverans tracing their heritage to the Arna tribe among the Nordmarians, the Riverans have sailed the oceans thin, and there is no such thing as a civilian ship in Rivera - fishing boats are the largest Riveran Watercrafts that sail without an on board crew of armed Marines. Riverans have sailed far and wide and when the colonization effort for northern Rahamra began, the Riverans made the smarter decision and sailed far south, to the southern shores of Rahamra, and they colonized those lands instead of warring for Northern Rahamra. The Riverans comfortable trade with the Orient, using their - admittedly MUCH longer trade route, but also much safer. The Carnala Republics have a monopoly on the the shorter of the three existing trade-routes, and the Nordmarians do not have the set-up to rival the Riveran trade offers. The Mark Lands primarily buy their exotic goods from Nordmar, but both Orlais, but Novera almost exclusively buys from Rivera, where was Orlais buys mainly from the Carnala Republics. Trade is what has truly made Rivera wealthy, and while the Continental Rivera is very small - almost abysmally so - Rivera's colonies are among the most well functioning and most populated - more interestingly, the Riveran colonies are populated with people who are ethnically Riverans. Regions Rivera was once larger - it has lost a lot of distant lands to Orlais, and to Novera as well, but Rivera has some of the most well established colonies in the entire world - Not only does it have the fourth largest colony in the Source Lands, it has multiple extremely well established colonies that exceed the size of Continental Novera, in the Southern Rahamra. Military Rivera invented the revolutionary "merchant marine" concept - every sea-vessel designated as a "ship" has to have a crew of Marines employed for it to legally set sail, unless it acquires a temporary exception or only travels along particular short, safe and domestic routes. The Merchant Marines are Riveran Army Soldiers who are trained in the Riveran Naval Academy as sailors and then are employed by private individuals. The Marines have their own commanding officers on the ship, and to be Captain of a private ship - the individual MUST have graduated as such from the Naval Academy (meaning every ship captain is a naval officer). The Naval Academy is indeed the only Riveran institution that offers training as Navigator, certified ship-doctor, helmsman or even a sailor. The actual commander of the marines is an actively serving Marine Lieutenant - though designated as a "Commander" due to being in charge of all the sailors directly. The Captain of the ship is a reservist who is partly employed by the Navy - navigators, doctor and helmsmen are all lieutenants and also reservists, with the senior most Navigator being second in command. The owner of the ship doesn't necessarily have a designation - sometimes the Captain of a ship is also the Skipper, but just as often, the merchant or otherwise owner of the ship, is himself traveling with the ship or has an appointed representative on the ship. They do not teach the art of mercantile in the naval academy, so the Captain cannot be trusted to do more than lead the ship's crew on its given mission. The owner, and or, representative is therefor referred to as the "Skipper", and the Skipper is the de jure leader of the ship - though while at sea, the Captain always has the option to interject and overrule the Skipper's decisions. The Commander can in turn, overrule the Captain's decisions if the ship is under attack or he feels it necessary to divert the ship due to Riveran interests. All merchant vessels are also quite well armed with cannons, with all the crew having cutlasses and blunderbusses, as well as quite a few muskets on board. The Riveran Navy is unparalleled in power and might - but apart from that, Riverans are said to generally have one of 3 professions: Farmer, Soldier or Sailor, and none of those are mutually exclusive in Rivera, where most of the farmland stretches along small narrow river-islands that are most commonly traveled on the river. The Royal Riveran Marines are the most elite soldiers in Rivera - Royal Marines are commando soldiers who are trained extremely well - their primary assignments are naturally naval in nature, but they are entirely commando soldiers with the ability to take any role in combat, that isn't highly specialized. Interestingly, Rivera doesn't really have Infantry forces - their only land based soldiers, apart from their militias, guardsmen and of course their Royal Marines, are their Cavalry, who also serve dismounted if necessary. The Riveran Army does exist however, though it primarily consists of Cavalry, they do have auxiliary forces, artillerist and other such troops, but they lack the common line infantry man, not meaning however that they do not train line infantry - all Riveran Army soldiers are fist and foremost trained as line infantry before they move on to a new designation - this includes all militia members. Rivera defends its lands with artillery positions, cavalry and an unbeatable navy. Interestingly, while Rivera does have an Army, Rivera doesn't have any Army Officers - The Riveran Army, excepting the Cavalry (which is lead exclusively by Knights), is used almost entirely for defensive purposes. The need for officer training specifically pertaining to the Army is fairly small for the same reason - as such, it is only available within the Naval Academy, so any Army Officer in Rivera, is also a Navy Officer. Knighthood Riveran Knights were the first the world had seen - Riveran Cavalry charges are said to be unstoppable. The Riverans do not believe in Light Cavalry or Dragoons - they have an overwhelming amount of Cuirassiers, who are so well trained that they can fight as infantry or serve as scouts. The superior bred Riveran Warhorses can usually outride and outlast most other breeds, and even when it isn't the case, the Riveran cavalry uses has spare horses of different breeds available. That said, in modern day Rivera, Cavalry is no longer synonymous with Knight - the Knights who returned from Dussante had newly established trade contacts in, what was at the time, the wealthiest trade nation of the Westerlands, and they were themselves rich in land and spoils of war. Influenced heavily by the rich culture of Dussante, these people soon formed an upper elite in Rivera - Rivera as such never had nobility - they have knights. Becoming a Knight in Rivera requires one first being a Squire - a Squire is the Riveran word for a cavalry man. The Riveran military selects among the Squires, those who are worthy (often those with education, who already belong to the elite - essentially the Gentry - or those who are wealthy) and send them off to the Naval Academy to train there, and following their graduation from the Naval Academy as Naval Officers, a process that usually takes a few years, they are considered Knights. Influences: Renaissance Netherlands.